


Song Underwater

by Glowbug



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Mirror Gem gives me echolalia feels, More tags might be added, are gem types proper nouns I can't decide, but hey, if this gets as far as Barn Mates y'all should know I ship lapidot, not exactly sure how many of these I'll write or where it might go, the series from Lapis's POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowbug/pseuds/Glowbug
Summary: Lapis exists, trapped and sullen, until one day a strange human/gem child gets hold of her mirror. Nothing will ever be the same. (The series from Lapis's perspective, starting with Mirror Gem.)
Relationships: Lapis Lazuli & Steven Universe
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	1. Beach Summer Fun Buddies

The inside of the pearl's gem was bright white and usually silent; sometimes, if she really strained, Lapis Lazuli could hear muddy sounds from outside. She saved the effort for times when she absolutely _had_ to do something to not go insane. The noises were never clear enough to identify, but at least they were _there_ and gave her something to focus on until her gem hurt so much she couldn't think about anything else.

That was her existence until the pearl pulled her out one day.

"—It'll offer you everything you've ever wanted to know about your fellow Gems and our culture!"

 _"I_ must be incredibly important to gem culture."

Lapis peered out through the binding lines etched on her mirror. The pearl as usual, and… a human? A small one. The pearl had said "fellow gems," but that made no sense. As far as Lapis could tell, there _were_ no gems left on this stars-forsaken planet except a very few "Crystal Gem" rebel leaders and a bevy of corrupted monstrosities. She didn't know how the latter had gotten that way; it scared her to think about.

The pearl's first order wasn't even interesting. Lapis curled back into the corner of her mind. Of course she'd seen the Galaxy Warp, she'd spent almost a millennium there staring up at Homeworld's star. She never wanted to see _or show_ the cracking place again! The pearl shook her in frustration, then sighed and—handed her off to the human. She wasn't putting her back in storage?

The human ran out of the house, cheering. Lapis came alert despite herself. Something _different_ today, at least! The beach zipped by, waves glittering in the sunlight. Stars, if she could only reach all that water, those Crystal Gems would never know what hit them. She'd wipe that temple of theirs right out of existence.

The mirror jolted as its bearer crashed into something. Ow! Careless organic—

"Watch where you're going, you little— _Sssteven!"_ an unfamiliar voice broke in.

"Sorry! I'm just so excited for summer."

"Steven" chatted happily with the two new humans. They seemed to like him, even though he'd knocked over their stuff. Lapis wished she could join in. Soon Steven was on his way again, laughing and making funny noises into the mirror. He didn't even seem to care that she wasn't showing him anything. He was just a—what was the word, baby? No, babies were the _really_ tiny humans. _Child_ , that was it—playing with a mirror.

"May-or Dew-ey! May-or Dew-ey!"

 _Silt._ One of those wheeled "van" conveyances, an ugly one at that, headed straight for them. Steven hadn't noticed. He'd get hurt (wait, why did it matter to her if…?), and _she'd_ probably shatter if her gem took any more damage. She'd often thought that would be preferable to existing forever like _this,_ but—

_"Watch where you're going, you little—!"_

"Huh?" Steven halted. Saw the van. "Noooooooooo!"

The van stopped. Another human appeared, scolding Steven this time, but Lapis didn't pay him much attention.

_Did I just…?_

She hadn't even thought about it, just grabbed a nearby memory and _shoved_ it at the outside world. _Did I know I could do that?_ The cracked mirror bindings gave her more control of her projections than she'd had in the first years, but she'd never tried to share one unprompted before. Who'd have listened?

The boy's astonished face filled her vision. "What just happened?"

Tentatively, Lapis showed Steven his own laughter. It was a nice laugh. Sincere. Well, what did she have to lose?

Steven's face lit up like a star. "You work! This is so cool! What's it like being a mirror?"

 _That_ was easy: _"You work!"_ Lapis echoed through the mirror.

"So you can repeat stuff?"

 _"Yeah-hah-haaah!!"_

"Wow!" Steven ran down the beach. If Lapis had been able to form at that moment she would have done it leaping and shouting for joy. Human, Crystal Gem or some freaky fusion of the two, it didn't matter. This child, this Steven, was actually talking to her!

The "mayor" human was declaiming from the top of his van. Steven made a well-timed fart noise, interrupting the insipid speech. The other humans tittered. Lapis almost projected Steven's laughter again, then had a better idea: she repeated the silly sound herself, then a second time, then a third, until the crowd of people burst out laughing _for_ her. Steven grinned.

"Wow, you picked that up fast."

 _Thanks!_ She reached for a memory of a "thank you" Rose Quartz had given the pearl twenty or so years ago, but when she tried to show it in the mirror everything went wavy and painful in a way that had nothing to do with her cracked gem. _Blast!_

The memory slipped from her grasp. Steven didn't seem to have noticed. He flopped down on the sand, happily chatting to her like…

_A new friend._

_Hmm._ She reached for Steven's laughter again. It was an effort—she hadn't noticed that before, too shocked and thrilled at being able to interact with someone—but yes, these fresher memories were easier to push through the cracks in her bindings. Fine. Even this half-communication felt like water on dried-up clay. She'd take what she could get.

"Have you really seen all of gem history, mirror?"

Not _that_ again. _"Nope."_ _  
_

"That's too bad. I'd like to know more about gems."

_"You can stop talking about it now."_

"Oh. Sorry. I guess you if have to show it to everybody, it must get pretty boring after a while."

_"Pretty boring after a while,"_ Lapis agreed. "Boring" didn't begin to cover the crushing ennui, thousands of years with only her own thoughts for company, but it felt good to express _something_ about this prison for a change.

"I wish the _gems_ would tell me more about gem culture. They think I'm too young to know anything!" Steven pouted. "It's really annoying. I'm a Crystal Gem too, y'know."

 _"What a shame,"_ Lapis deadpanned in Pearl's voice.

Steven shrugged, not seeming to catch her meaning. "Dad says they'll take me more seriously when I'm older. Hey, you wanna see the rest of the beach?"

 _"Yeah-hah-haaah!!"_ That was more like it!

* * *

The last good day before this one had been hours before she got caught in that battle; she'd actually been having fun, flying around the sloppily-formed beta kindergarten and thinking about how she could improve on the next section of it. Whatever terraformer had been there before her had obviously rushed the job, but this planet had a _lot_ of water. She'd wanted more than was near the kindergarten though, and had taken a not-exactly-authorized side trip to the ocean. She'd returned to absolute chaos. Crystal Gems everywhere. She'd washed some of them away in a panic, but the guards assigned to her were nowhere to be seen. Then— _poof._

She didn't show Steven that memory. He seemed to think she'd always been a mirror. Didn't he understand what _powered_ a gem-powered item?

To her surprise, he'd accepted her reluctance to "talk" about gems. Instead, he spent the afternoon running around, showing and telling her all about his life in Beach City. Later they went back to the beach and he tried to teach her something called "knock knock jokes." Lapis wasn't sure about those—too much repetition—but Steven was so obviously thinking about things she could _do_ from inside the mirror that she just couldn't bring herself to be irritated.

"Mirror, we're going to have so much fun this summer," he was saying. "Tomorrow you can meet Connie! Maybe she can tell us more about 'school' and summer vacation! Or we could go get ice cream! Oh wait… you can't eat ice cream."

 _"Can't eat ice cream,"_ Lapis echoed sadly. She wasn't sure what ice cream _was,_ actually. A special kind of human food? It sounded fun. She wished she could ask Steven.

"Oh, I know! We could go to another speech! Mayor Dewey gives tons of speeches."

 _"Pbbbbt!"_ Lapis teased.

Steven laughed. "You got a lot of mileage out of that joke. You're pretty funny for a mirror."

Hey, it was his joke too! _"You're pretty funny for a mirror."_

"I'm not a mirror!"

Hmm. She’d gotten used to the effort it took to "talk" like this, now. Maybe…

 _"You're pretty funny for a—"_ She switched memories. _"—Sssteven!"_

Steven lit up like a star again. "You made something new! Say something else!"

_"Sssteven—is—a new friend!"_

"Really?!"

 _"Yeah-hah-haaah!!"_ Lapis cheered. She would have hugged herself _and_ Steven if she could have. "Friend"-make gems, spinels and a few others, weren't common back home (and Lapis ranked a little too low to merit one), but she knew the word meant she wasn't so desperately alone in here anymore. Trapped, yes. But not alone.

"This is great!" Steven exclaimed. "I gotta go tell the gems."

Her joy turned to terror. _"Noooooooooo!"_

"Don't be shy, they'll love you!"

 _"Noooooooooo!"_ Lapis screamed in Steven's voice. More words, she needed more words! If the gems put her back in storage now she was going to corrupt under the strain!

"Oh, don’t worry. They're a good audience." Steven ran up the beach. Lapis growled and screamed in her mind, but she'd lost her concentration. The mirror was silent.

* * *

She didn't bother to "say hey" to the Crystal Gems, obviously.

"Li'l buddy," Steven prompted, sounding confused. "…Excuse us."

She glared at him the only way she could: with stillness and silence.

"Come on," Steven coaxed her. "You want to come out, don't you? You have so much to say, and funny noises to share from across the ages. Are we not beach summer fun buddies?"

Did she want to come out? _Oh, Steven, you have_ no _idea._ What she wouldn't give to show those dull, selfish gems a piece of her—

_"Pbbbbt!"_

Steven laughed. "Just couldn't help yourself, huh?"

Nope. She'd done it again without thinking. Far off at the edge of her glass she could see the Crystal Gems staring, but weirdly enough it didn't bother her. _"Just-for-_ you! _—Sssteven!"_ She made the mirror laugh. Why _not?_

The fusion who called herself Garnet approached with a stern expression. "Steven, you should just give us back the mirror." The amethyst piped up, wanting to bubble her.

 _"Noooooooooo!"_ she yelled.

Through a sandstorm of panic she heard Steven arguing with the Crystal Gems, holding Lapis/the mirror away from them. "It doesn't want to go with you! Don't you hear it screaming?"

"Steven, it's just a mirror, a tool. It can't want anything."

 _I want to go home!_ Lapis couldn't scream. _I want out! I hate you! I hate being your prisoner! Why won't you let me go_ home?!

She didn't have words for any of that. Steven seemed frozen to the spot and Lapis of course couldn't run or fly away. It'd been an impulsive mistake after all, letting them know she was more than a mirror; they'd never take her out again after this, they'd never let her near the one person who treated her like she was real.

She couldn't stand it. She _couldn't._ Desperately Lapis screamed and screamed the only word she had left for this living nightmare: _"Noooooooooo! Noooooooooo! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"_

Steven jerked her away from the Garnet fusion. "It wants to be with _me!"_

_Smack._ Garnet's visor clattered to the floor. Lapis fell silent in shock.

The look on the fusion's face was _murder._

"Aah! Aah! I'm sorry!!" And Steven ran.

 _He's helping me? He's_ helping _me!_ _Oh, stars, we're cracked._ One human boy had no chance, not against three, no, _four_ combat-hardened gems. No sooner had she thought it than Steven ducked behind a rock, panting. Sands blast it, this planet had _so much water._ She could level their pursuers in seconds if only…

"What am I gonna do? What's their problem with you?"

That would take _way_ too long to explain with a mosaic of borrowed voices. Lapis raced through every memory in her immediate reach, everything she'd seen and heard today. She had to ask Steven for help; she was never going to get another chance.

"Are you trying to say something?"

_Stars, help me, Steven, please help me, I'm so far—_ _  
_

_"—Away from home,"_ Lapis said. _"Let—me—out!"_

"I don't understand!"

_Break the mirror! Get my gem out! What are you waiting for?!  
_

The pearl yelled in the distance.

"Come on! I want to help you! What can I do?"

Lapis brought every shred of focus she'd ever had to bear on the mirror, ignoring the pain in her gem and the sizzling in her mind. She didn't have a memory for this, but she knew the shape of the mirror and she knew what Steven looked like. She couldn't tell him what he needed to do, but maybe, just maybe, she could show him…

The boy nodded, flipping the mirror over. _Yes! Hurry!_

Small fingers pulled on her gem. Lapis strained against the magical walls of her prison, reaching for the ocean _. Please…_

The water answered. For the first time in millennia she felt it, coalescing into channels, imitating the mirror's etchings in the sand around her new friend. Now those lines _magnified_ rather than constrained as together the two of them pulled and pulled and _pulled…_

And the mirror shattered.

Light and sound vanished. She thought _she'd_ shattered, for a moment. But no. She knew this feeling, remembered it; the energy in her gem swirled out and she let it flow, shaping it into hands and feet and hair and face… into a physical form.

Lapis dropped, exhausted, onto the sand.

She was free.

A familiar voice gasped and footsteps ran up to her. "Th-thank you…" Lapis rasped. It felt strange to speak with her own voice after so long. She staggered to her feet. "You didn't—" She tried to summon her wings for balance, only to stumble from the sudden sharp pain in her gem. Pudgy hands grabbed her arm, steadying her.

Lapis blinked through still-glassy vision at her rescuer. "You actually talked to me!" she said wonderingly. "You helped me! It's—Steven, right?"

Steven nodded, looking amazed.

"I'm Lapis. Lapis Lazuli."

Steven smiled and stuck his hand out in front of him. It didn't seem to matter to him what she was. He hadn't even looked at the diamond motif on her clothes.

This made no sense. "Are you really a Crystal Gem?"

"Yeah!" Steven said proudly.

"But… you set me free."

Steven squinted, looking confused, and opened his mouth to say something.

"STEVEN!!!" the fusion's voice rang out.

"Wait!" Steven ran up to the gems, arms out in a "stop" gesture. All of them had summoned weapons. So they wanted a fight?

They could have one.

"You," Lapis hissed at the Crystal Gems. The ocean lay at her back; it answered her call as readily as it ever had. It made her gem hurt like fissures, but Lapis didn't care about pain. "You three knew I was in there, and you _didn't do anything._ Did you even wonder who I used to _BE?!"_

Millions of carats of water slammed down, flattening the fusion and sending the other two flying. The pearl screamed at Steven to run, but he only turned around to gape at Lapis. "What are you _doing?"_

Lapis felt the fusion struggling under her hydro-kinetic grip. Mirror, was she? _Tool,_ was she? "I'm Lapis Lazuli," she roared, "and you can't keep me trapped here anymore!" But they would try. She looked to Steven. "They're not gonna let us leave _."_

"Leave?"

 _Us. I said "us."_ She'd planned her escape from Earth a thousand times, but never accounted for caring what happened to the gem/human/whatever he was who'd let her out. He'd be punished for sure. Besides, she'd never had a friend before…

"Steven, come with me." He probably needed to breathe, or thought he did, so Lapis parted the ocean.

"Where?" Steven asked.

Didn't he know? "Home."

Steven started stammering, looking from her to the Crystal Gems with obvious concern. He didn't want to go. He didn't want her to hurt them.

 _They_ were his friends. Not her.

"Fine," Lapis snapped, releasing the ocean. "Don't trust them, Steven… Goodbye."

Steven and the fusion both jumped at her, but Lapis seized a wave to knock them back and sweep her into the current. She steered into a riptide, letting the water soothe a nebulous ache in her chest as she headed out to sea.

_Goodbye, Steven._

So much for beach summer fun buddies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a great debt to the transcriber(s) of SU episodes for the wiki:  
> https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_Gem/Transcript
> 
> Seriously, whoever you are, you made my job way easier. Thank you!


	2. Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis tries to get home in the only way she can think of. (The events of Ocean Gem.)

She'd lost her wings.

The crack in her gem. She'd gotten it the day she was well and truly abandoned on this planet, under the heel of some heedlessly fleeing quartz or jade or agate, and it had cost Lapis her wings. She couldn't fly. She couldn't _leave._ Ironic: she was free, but still trapped.

She made an ice raft in the middle of Earth's ocean and cried until its sun rose.

* * *

She hadn't spent five thousand years in a mirror just to give up now.

There had to be another way home. Not the Galaxy Warp. She'd heard the Crystal Gems talk about disabling it. Where had the next-closest colony been? The Centauri system? It didn't even matter unless she could get there, did it?

Maybe… maybe if the Diamond observation base was still intact on Earth's moon. She hated the idea of sending a distress call from an abandoned colony in a far-flung galaxy of untouched star systems. Her Diamond could be very gentle or _very_ ruthless. But she would have to ask the Diamonds to show mercy and heal her damaged gem anyway… if she ever got home.

First she had to get home.

Lapis did the only thing she could think of, and reached for the water.

* * *

It was heavy, the ocean. _Should've picked a smaller project for your first day out of the mirror, Lazuli,_ she scolded herself; but really, what _else_ could she have done?

The atmosphere was thinning. She was rising higher; she was making progress. All she had to do was _not let go._

Then new sounds reverberated at the base of her tower, distorted and echoing through the water. She heard her name, followed by the shrill voice of _that priggish pearl again._

_"You shouldn't be here,"_ she snarled, letting the words echo down the tower as she readjusted her focus. Were they planning to trap her again, or what? She'd _shatter_ herself before she'd let them.

_"She's sensed us,"_ the fusion said. Lapis would have rolled her eyes, if her eyes hadn't felt more like pools of water or mercury. She couldn't seem to shape them normally. Not important right now. She flicked her fingers, shaping the water to put herself in touch with _whatever in the stars' name was going on down there._

And then a new voice called out, and a wave of betrayal washed over her.

_"Lapis Lazuli! It's me, Steven!"_ _  
_

_"Go away,"_ Lapis snapped. _"Before I make you."_

_"But we're beach summer fun buddies!"_

_"Noooooooooo!"_ she shouted at him in his own voice. _"You're one of **them,"**_ and beach summer fun buddies had ended the moment the fusion tried to take the mirror from him.

_"What do you mean?"_ Steven protested. _"We're all Gems, right? Just… let us help you."  
_

The idea of _them_ helping her felt like a cruel joke. But she didn't want to fight with Steven. _"You don't understand. Just leave me alone."_

_"We're not leaving, Lapis! Not until you give us back our ocean!"_

_We,_ was it? So he'd brought them on purpose? The Crystal Gems, her would-be jailers? If they thought she was such a threat, why couldn't they just let her _leave?_

Steven was slapping the wall of her tower and it. Was. _Annoying._ Her patience ran out.

_"I said **leave me alone!"**_

She knocked him away. The Crystal Gems all pulled weapons. Lapis stared up into the stars, knowing she couldn't get a single millistrata closer with her concentration split like this, and _screamed._

She didn't know if they heard it. She didn't particularly care.

She wasn't, strictly speaking, made to be in a fight, but she had hundreds of years of examples to follow. She'd seen battles. She'd seen strategy meetings. She'd even seen _these_ gems fight a few times, when the pearl had bothered to leave her out in the open. All the worst days of her life flooded through her mind and Lapis fought like her life depended on it. It might as well have. _Steven_ even attacked her—Steven! She shoved him and some other human who'd thrown rocks further away from the fight, in water bubbles to make them stay put, until another Earth vehicle mowed down her water-Steven. Lapis swayed briefly before knocking that away too. Her head pounded, but that wasn't surprising. She'd keep this up as long as she had to, until they got it into their rock-hard heads that _all she wanted—_

_"Lapis! I don't want to fight anymore!"_

_Then you shouldn't have brought them to capture me, Steven._

_"I said, **I DON'T WANNA FIGHT!"**_

Something flashed bright pink, bright as a Diamond aura or a solar flare. Lapis got a glimpse of Steven with a shining radial shield (she'd seen that somewhere before—where?) before a shock wave rocked her tower, liquefying her water fighters and knocking her to her hands and knees. She didn't actually need to breathe, but she found herself gasping for air.

_"Lapis, I'm coming up to see you. So please don't drown me."_

Lapis tried to collect herself. Her gem throbbed as she got to her feet. Steven walked into her tower, making her shudder, but he wasn't leaving her much choice. She brought him up.

_You're an idiot, Lazuli._ She'd forgotten he was human; he _did_ need to breathe. She could have easily drowned him without meaning to.

Steven burst through the top of her tower and she pushed the thought aside for later. _"What_ are you _doing_ here, Steven?" _  
_

Steven blinked. "What are _you_ doing here? This thing—the ocean! _This is crazy!"_ _  
_

…He had a point.

"Can't we work this out? We gems should be friends!"

"Don't you know anything, Steven?!" Of course he didn't. He'd told her that himself. No wonder he'd been so friendly. He'd probably never met a gem who wasn't a rebel before. "Your friends," she said, "they don't really care about other gems. All they care about is the Earth. But I never believed in this place." Blue Diamond's entire court had come, to shore up Pink Diamond's precious first colony. Lapis dimly recalled being excited: such a unique assignment! An honor! And so much raw material to work with!

Getting caught in a war had dulled the luster in a hurry.

The stars had never looked so far away.

Lapis sighed, dropping Steven's bubble, and sat down. Some of her headache abated now that she wasn't trying to fight _and_ hold up her tower at the same time, but her gem ached so much she could hardly see straight.

"I just want to go home," she whispered.

Steven sat down next to her.

"I know how important home can be… but that's why I'm here. You took the ocean away, and the ocean is an important part of _my_ home."

Did he think she planned on _keeping_ it?

"I'm only using the ocean because my gem is cracked. If I just stretch it far enough…" She wasn't sure she could. All this water, and the fighting she'd just done… she was near her limit already. Lapis hugged herself to keep her hands from shaking.

"This is never going to work…" She had no idea what else to do.

"I can fix your gem!" Steven exclaimed. "I have healing powers!"

"Healing powers?" Lapis repeated stupidly.

"I know, right?" Steven grinned. Apparently, he was serious.

He was serious?

"Oh. What should I…?"

"Oh. Sorry, this might be a little weird." Steven… licked his hand? And slapped it on her gem. Lapis shuddered. (He was right, it _was_ weird.)

Warmth spread through her entire form; her vision cleared. The ocean seemed somehow less heavy.

The ache in her gem vanished. Lapis summoned her wings.

_It worked…_

She was whole.

_"Thank you,_ Steven!"

Steven stared at her in something like awe. "No prob, Bob."

She blinked. "…It's Lapis."

"…Yeah."

"Okay." Just like that, the moment passed. She knew without asking that he still wasn't going to go with her. Steven called Earth home. Lapis didn't get it, but maybe that was okay.

"Bye," she said to him when no other words came, and took to the skies. As she flew she relaxed her hold on Earth's ocean, letting it tumble back into place—slowly enough not to poof anyone, she hoped. She figured she owed Steven that much.

Homeworld's star shone far in the distance, not out of reach anymore. Lapis lined herself up with it and flew. She was tired, but _nothing_ could knock her off course now.

Lapis Lazuli was going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode transcript of Ocean Gem: https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Ocean_Gem/Transcript
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left nice comments and kudos on the first chapter! I'm going to keep going in order of events and see how far I get, I think. :)
> 
> Lapis's next appearance is in The Message, which leaves me way more behind-the-scenes to dream up. Wish me luck!


End file.
